The World Before Us

The World Before Us by Aislinn Hunter, read by Fiona Hardingham. A tantalising mystery... beguiling and richly suggestive Metro Jane was fifteen when her life changed for ever. In the woods surrounding a Yorkshire country house, she took her eyes off the little girl she was minding and the girl slipped into the trees - never to be seen again. Now an adult, Jane is obsessed with another disappearance: that of a young woman who walked out of a Victorian lunatic asylum one day in 1877. As Jane pieces together moments in history, forgotten stories emerge - of sibling jealousy, illicit affairs, and tragic death . . . Strange and absorbing . . . I relished this book - Penelope Lively, The New York Times Book Review Sensitive, melancholy, sharply observant. A work of great power - Guardian Ambitious, inticate . . . cleverly innovates while tipping a nod to classic Gothic tropes: dynastic rivalries, crumbling country houses, madhouses and vanished girls National Post (Canada) A brilliant work of humanity and imagination, artful and breathtakingly beautiful. It will continue to haunt long after you have finished reading Helen Humphreys, author of Nocturne Powerful, thought-provoking, haunting and haunted . . . Reminiscent of A.S. Byatts Possession, it forces you to look at the world - the people around you, the objects they hold dear - in a different light Globe and Mail (Canada)